Dish Network

If you're a big fan of some the cool original programs on AMC like Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, and Mad Men, bad news. After threatening for months to drop AMC, Dish Network has made good on the threat. AMC has now been dropped from the Dish Network lineup meaning fans of any of the networks programming will need to change carriers to be able to watch.

Seems like everyone wants to make use of the new Snapdragon S4 SoC, with DISH and Qualcomm announcing a partnership that will see the popular chipset used in upcoming wireless devices. DISH is hoping to create mobile handsets that will be able to take use of the integrated 3G and LTE radios while also leveraging a satellite mode. DISH looks to be utilizing its spectrum to deliver wireless broadband on the ground in addition to its satellite service.

I knew the second Dish Network unveiled in its commercial deleting Auto Hop feature that networks would be suing. This is the feature that would go in after recording prime-time TV shows shows on a Dish Network DVR and delete commercials so users didn't have to fast-forward. Network executives are already calling the feature an attack on the ecosystem foreshadowing the inevitable lawsuits.

Roku has been around for a long time with various different streaming boxes offering all kinds content for TV watchers to enjoy. Roku has announced that it has landed a new on-demand partner providing 50 new international channels in the United States allowing viewers who aren't native English speakers to watch TV from their home countries. The service is called DISHWorld.

A week or so back, Dish Network announced its automatic commercial erasing Auto Hop technology. I think most of us knew TV networks were not going to appreciate the feature in the least. Many TV networks have come out against Auto Hop suggesting that automatically deleting commercials from DVR recorded programs would upset the current ecosystem that pays for network television shows. What we may not have expected is to see cable companies come out against the feature.

Last week, we mentioned a new and interesting feature that Dish Network added to some of its DVRs. The new feature is called Auto Hop and would go in on certain shows and automatically delete the commercials. The feature did have caveats such as only working on prime time programming for the four big broadcast networks.

The rise of TiVo and other digital video recorders foretold an apocalypse, a sweeping river of change that would destroy the television industry as we know it thanks to lowered commercial advertising revenue. Except it didn't - it just made it easier to skip those four Honda commercials interrupting Law & Order. Now DISH Network has taken it one step further, installing a feature on its Hopper DVRs that automatically bypasses commercials.

Verizon's 4G LTE wireless connectivity will soon be an option for residential broadband. The company will be launching a new HomeFusion service that will leverage its 4G LTE wireless network to bring high-speed connectivity to residential customers, which will be especially welcome to those living in areas with limited broadband choices. The service will be available starting Thursday, May 3, kicking off nationwide (230 markets), which covers two-thirds of the US population.

Spotify isn’t the only music streaming company making headlines today. DISH has announced that it’s taking Pandora, the personalized radio service, and bringing it to the DISH Hopper HD DVR system. Pandora integration will mean that customers will be able to search and access Pandora from their Hopper DVRs across the house.

When Dish Network purchased the ailing Blockbuster rental chain last year, it had planned to keep about 90% of the stores around the country open. That means that 10% of the stores fell under the knife straight away and were closed. Dish Network noted at CES that it was set to axe every one of the stores around the country not making money.